All Stripped Down With Everywhere to Go

Matt & Kim Make Loving (and Playing) Fun

Those who don't move their asses to the Matt & Kim song "Yea Yeah" off the duo's self-titled album are missing their ears or their soul—or both. Sure, it's cute and bubblegum sweet. But the naked, three-chord synth-pop the Brooklyn pair plays is, at its core, a firmly punk denial of pretense. It's a celebration of raw joy that could only come from a young couple in love. Fresh off a European tour on which they played more than one festival show with the unlikely partner of Nine Inch Nails, Matt Johnson took time out of his recovery period to speak with us from his parents' cabin in Vermont about sharing the stage with Trent Reznor, touring with Against Me! and why Matt and Kim's music is so stripped-down.

OC Weekly:What's it like for you to play for a crowd who has come to see Nine Inch Nails?

Matt Johnson: We actually really like trying to win people over. I feel we're accessible, and we play a style of music that I like to think you can get into on first listen. We try to just be ourselves onstage and be inviting rather than that stone-cold, too-cool-for-school thing. Just our dorky selves.

So cute you could eat them. Photo courtesy of Matt & Kim.

Is playing with Against Me! another situation in which you're going to be playing for a crowd that wouldn't come out to see just you?

I don't know; I keep hearing that. People saying, "What? That doesn't make sense." But I really think it does make sense. The first times I saw Against Me! were in basements up in Portland, Maine, and it was really the same feel as our loft shows; maybe musically we sound different, but the vibe was the same, where everyone would be packed in and dancing and just there to have fun. Kim and I listen to mostly hip-hop and pop punk, and you can really see our music is derivative of that. We don't listen to a lot of rock music or "indie" rock—I'm putting that in quotes. We hear a lot of bands whom we could possibly tour with who just don't fit. We think in really more of a punk rock way as far as our stage show goes. [There's a] lot of stage diving.

It seems like your music is rooted not only in that classic punk ethic, but its aesthetic, as well.

I'm not a piano player; I play two keyboards, one like a bass and one like a guitar. And Kim just loves to wail on the drums. I don't write love songs; I never will write a love song. I don't write political songs, either, but we write a lot of songs about figuring your life out.

Your music is really stripped-down. What drew you to that sound?

Kim and I dated for years before we ever started playing music together. Kim really wanted to learn how to play drums, and I had found one of my keyboards in my neighbor's garage. So I was trying to figure out how to play keyboards, and she was trying to figure out how to play drums. I guess we had no choice but simplicity because neither of us were masters of our instruments. But, essentially, that works out; people respond to the simplest beat. Just listen to [Queen's] "We Will Rock You." Listening to hip-hop, a lot of songs will have one continuous melody that goes over the top of the whole thing; it gives you something to hook into and hold on to, so I use that in a lot of our songs.